by Phil Klay
First published 2015
A soldier in Iraq must shoot dogs feeding on corpses, then months later sits on his suburban sofa where his wife and labrador wait for him. A marine assigned to Mortuary Affairs identifies, transports and buries fighters both Iraqi and American without distinction. Meanwhile, a young officer receives the absurd assignment of improving civilian life by teaching them baseball. Phil Klay takes readers to the front lines of Iraq and Afghanistan, seeking to understand what happened there and how those who returned home now live. Between brutality and faith, guilt and fear, helplessness and the drive to survive, veterans search for meaning in the chaos they escaped. The stories move between the concrete realities of war and the strange adjustments of peacetime, examining the gap between combat and civilian life that veterans must somehow bridge.
Genres: fiction, american-fiction, military-fiction, 21st-century
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: coming-of-age, war
Setting: Iraq, Afghanistan
Period: 21st-century
300 pages · Paperback · Gallmeister
Content warnings: violence, war